ROCKEFELLER TRUST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17188, 3 November 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

ROCKEFELLER TRUST.

WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR MANKIND. A GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN. (By Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in “John O’ London’s Weekly.”) No poet sings the achievement of peace, and more's the pity. For there have been peaceful campaigns rich in dramatic endeavours and heroic sacrifice. ending in victories that left no sting. Take, for instance, the first decade of the Rockefeller Foundation. The report is a document that mankind may be proud of. It is a record of a ten years’ conflict against disease and despair, against ignorance and superstition, and we do not hesitate to use the phrase " a glorious campaign.” CLOSING TX ON YELLOW FEVER. One of the gratuitous handicaps of mankind is vellow fever, familiarly known as A'ellow Jack. AYe say gratuitous for two reasons: first, because no one can pretend that the microbe causing this disease is in any sense a useful or discriminating eliminator; and. second, because the plague can be got rid of. The days of fatalism and folded hands arc over as regards the dreaded yellow fever; and so it is

bound to be with other infectious diseases whenever man cares enough. Following the discovery, by Ross and ethers, that malaria is spread by the mosquito, which carries the malaria animal from man to man. American Army medical officers, headed by Reed, were able to prove that the vehicle of yellow fever is the female, of another kind of mosquito, called Stegom>ia. She lays her eggs in water. like any gnat, and gnat she is; and the first move in the campaign was to get rid <>f. cover up. or petrolize the stagnant pools. If the mosquito cannot get access to water, it cannot multiplv; and that will be the end of. Yellow Jack. If the larvae bred in accessiblepools find, when they rise to the surface to breathe, a surface film of petrol or jiarafifin to which they cannot adhere, they die of suffocation, in other words they drown: and that will be the end of A'ellow Jack. Of course, there was also the careful screening of houses. AA HAT THE MAP SHOWS. Tt was in these ways that General Gorgas got the upperhand of vellow fever, first in Cuba and later in the legion of the Panama Canal. “ Inspired V y these triumphs. Dr Oswald Cruz succeeded in ridding Rio de Janeiro of the disease, a feat soon emulated by ; Dr Liceaga at. Vera Cruz.” The efforts towards closing in were continued with redoubled energy because of the dread If. st the opening of the Panama Canal might carry yellow fever to the dense population of the Orient; and these efforts were rewarded. The fever was •gradually restricted to certain seedbeds, and it is “a sight for sair een to contrast the map of 1900 with its . broak dark bands and belts, indicating the distribution of the disease, and the map of 1922 with only a few relatively small black patches. Fine team work there was, for in addition to the tactics already referred to, there came the investigations conducted in Ecuador and Yucatan by Dr Hideyo Noguchi, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, which resulted in the discovery of the yellowfever germ and the preparation of vaccine and serum that have since given encouraging results. The plague has been forced into retreat, and while “ it

!is too early to predict a complete victory, the successors of General Gorgas share his faith that it will in time be I* One of the heaviest clouds that have ever rested on the. human race is due to a small threadworm or Nematode, known as hookworm and represented by several different kinds. This creature fixes itself to the wall of a man’s intestine and draws blood from its victim. It causes anaemia, disablement, lethargy, and despair. It brings about what is often called “tropical depression, ’ and the malady is prevalent over areas inhabited by 900,000,000 people—let us say half the population of the globe. \\ hat the Rockefeller Foundation lias done is to conduct an antihookworm campaign in over half a hundred States and countries, always making it a sine qua non that the local authorities joined in. Re-examinations of school children in sixtv-six counties in the Southern States of America have shown in the last, three years an average reduction of 47.5 per cent, of hookworm disease as compared with the incidence shown bv the. original surveys made between 1910 and 1914. “ In one county a decrease of 94 per cent, had taken place; in several, over 80 per cent.; in only one was an increase disclosed.” LIFE-HISTORY OF THE HOOKWORM. After the nature of the disease was discovered, the next step was to unravel the life-history of the worm. And it is not one of the complicated cvoles. The eggs pass from man into the soil, where they give ri.se to tiny burrowing larvae which cannot travel far and do not live very long. Rut if the soil is persistently contaminated, the chances are many that larval hookworms enter the skin of children and adults walking barefoot. From the skin they pass into 1 the blood vessels, thence, to the lungs, and thence, somewhat circuitously, down to the food-canal. Eventually they bury their hooks in the wall of the intestine, and proceed to grow and multiply. It is not difficult by means of vermifuges to expel the. worms from man, but reinfection soon takes place unless people can be induced to •avail themselves of simple sanitary precautions. In the case of natives the last step is the obstacle of getting rid of hookworm, and the Rockefeller campaigners have been wise enough to try to make the point of their recommendations intelligible. Diagrams, pictures, microscopes, and the squirming worms themselves are used to show why such l and such precautions must lie taken in order to get rid of the disabling and dispiriting disease. This is of incalculable importance in itself and in its consequences. For " experience with antihookworm campaigns in many countries has proved that the disease can be readily used as a means of educating the public in the possibilities of preventive medicine.” Ex uno disce oxnnes. CONTROLLING MALARIA AT LOW COST. Let us take the third example of the Rockefeller Foundation's activities, and that of a slightly different character. Malaria is one of the big human diseases, known since the time of Hippocrates, probably a big factor in the decline of Greece and Rome. The Italian who named it malaria ” plainly thought, that it was due to " bad air”; scientific investigations, which we cannot admire too much, shot through and through as they are with genius and heriosm, have shown us that a microscopic, animal which flourishes in' the blood is to blame, and that it is diffused by the mosquito. As regards the virulent intruder, quinine is well known to be an invaluable counteractive and cure. THE COST. As regards the mosquito, the possibilities are to use. curtains and veils, to drain the pools where the young mosquitos live, to pour oil on the troublous waters, or to introduce little fishes which devour the larvae. All this is an old story in this period of rapid scientific progress, but what has been recently exercising the minds of the Rockefeller Board is the humdrum question, which every business man will appreciate, of securing the benefits of malaria-control at a minimum cost. “ The - programme for 1922 inc luded thirty-four county-wide control demonstrations and thirty-two town demonstrations in ten States. All the demonstrations have afforded cumulative proof that, under normal conditions an average community can practically rid itself of malaria at a cost per head from forty-five cents to a dollar per year.” INTERN ATI ON A L lIYGIE XE. It must be understood that the endeavours of the Rockefeller Foundation have their counterparts elsewhere, for there are numerous organisations work- ( ing towards a higher standard of health in mankind. But the Foundation has big resources behind it (the disbursement for 1922 was about sixteen million dollars) ; it can work on a large scale: and it is concentrating on a comparatively limited range of activities, within the closely related fields ot public health and medical education, j Comparatively limited, and yet the map of the world is dotted with its . endeavours. In twenty-one govern-J mental areas throughout the world it , is conducting or subsidising hvgenic | enterprises against yellow fever, hook- J worm, malaria, nacl tuberculosis. 1 1 is j training health-service personnel from . Brazil to Poland. It is aiding universities from 1 long-Ivong to London. It . is assisting research from Paris to the J Philippines. It supports a great medical school in China, and grants Fellowships of 237 individuals from twenty - three countries. To the Health Section of the League of Nations it has given the sum of 32,840 dollars a year for five years to maintain an international intelligence service dealing with epi- j demic diseases, and 60.050 dollars a year | for three rears for international exchange of health-service personnel. AYe must not mention more, but the document is full of encouragement, not least in the emphatic sounding of the liitei- j national note. |